The Doctor's Daughter Part 24

I turned down the light, and left the room: there were laughter and merry-making below, perhaps they would help me to forget these gloomy thoughts. I stepped lightly down the narrow stairway, and entered the cosy sitting room, where the family were a.s.sembled, with a pleasant, careless countenance.

They were engaged in a lively discussion when I came into the room; cousin Bessie had just conveyed the tidings, that an invitation had been left that afternoon for "Zita and Amey" from Mrs. Wayland Rutherby, asking them to go in on the following day, as Pansy and Lulu Rutherby had a young lady staying with them, and would like to introduce her to their friends. "Louis and Papa and myself" she was just adding, "are expected to drop in after dinner, when there will be music and a little dancing."

"Did you say we would go, Cousin, Bessie?" I put in, coming towards her and drawing up a seat beside hers.

"Of course, you will go," she answered emphatically. "Sophie Rutherby is my old school-friend, and we never refuse her."

"But I prefer not to go Cousin Bessie, I have not been out anywhere since--my father's death."

"Nonsense child! you are not going to mope away your young life like this," she broke in indignantly, "however, if you have any scruples, you can come away after dinner, before the active pleasures begin--there will be no one there in the afternoon but you and Zita.

Surely you cannot object to that."

So it was settled, that we were to go to Mrs. Rutherby's, and the eventful afternoon came in due time. Zita was a little longer than usual before her looking-gla.s.s on that occasion, and was as pretty and fresh as a mountain daisy, when she came down at last to join me below.

We were received with gushing, girlish enthusiasm, by Pansy and Lulu Rutherby, in their rare and expensive toilets, they were both pretty and lively, and we talked and laughed during our first half-hour together, as though we had been old friends all our lives. Pansy and Lulu took poor Zita by storm, they showed their latest programmes of dances, and repeated for her benefit the newest compliments which had been paid to them by their respective admirers, since they had last entertained her.

Mrs. Rutherby and her senior guest, the mother of the younger lady, sat side by side on a remote sofa exchanging confidential whispers about their daughters. Miss Longfield, the Rutherby's "girl friend,"

and I, of necessity found ourselves thrown together, a little way from the rest. She was a tall, pale girl with a very high _chignon_, a very stiff satin dress, and very queer little shoes with very p.r.o.nounced heels.

"You belong to Canada, I suppose?" she began looking at me speculatively from head to foot.

"Yes, I have always lived here," I answered, returning the speculative glance and concluding that Miss Longfield's complexion was decidedly sallow.

"Then you've been to Court, I guess?" she next asked.

"To Court," I exclaimed, raising my voice and my eyebrows.

"Why, yes" she retorted somewhat indignantly, "you've got Royalty over here, haven't you?"

"Oh! now I understand," said I with a covert smile, "you mean, have I been presented to Her Royal Highness?"

She nodded her _chignon_ affirmatively with a satisfied air, and began biting her under lip, which operation, however, was immediately interrupted by an expressive--"It must be awfully nice."

I took the trouble to give my American friend a lengthy description of our drawing-room receptions, in which she became ardently interested, never interrupting me until I had come to the end. She then surprised me with the question.

"Don't you have any refreshments?" put in a high key.

"Not until we get home," said I laughing. "The ceremony is virtually over when the people have been presented."

This rather disappointed her, I am afraid, but what could I do? She dismissed the subject summarily by touching upon another new one--that of our winter sports. I had to describe the tobogganing costumes, their effect at night when bonfires were burning in the vicinity of the hills, the sensation of going down, and the excitement of trudging back again to the top. She listened admirably and seemed thoroughly appreciative of my generous effort to entertain her. When I had finished, she remarked very quietly.

"It must be real nice, and ever such good fun, but I could never try it. It would smother me right there--I'm always under doctors' orders, you know," she added in a subdued, confidential whisper, "I've got seven diseases?"

"Have you indeed?" I exclaimed in genuine consternation. "You don't look as if you had," I continued by way of encouragement, but without effect, for she interrupted me, fretfully saying:

"Oh, yes I do! Anyone would know I had anaemia, I am so pale, and dyspepsia, for I eat so few things, and such a little at a time; then there's dyscrasia, comes from poverty of the blood, and my palpitations, that prevent me from having any pleasures worth calling so, besides these," she added, putting her reckoning finger upon her thumb, "I suffer from neuralgia, and acute rheumatism, and," (on the second finger of the other, hand, which represented seven) "an inflammation of the spine. So now, what do you think of that?"

"Well, really I am very sorry for you, poor Miss Longfield'" I said with an effort to let my sympathy overcome my burning desire to laugh outright; "you have been very unfortunate indeed, to have contracted so many diseases at once."

"Oh my const.i.tution has always been weak," she sighed; "I take some twenty different medicines, I believe," she added, as if she were trying to frighten me out of the room, "you'd hardly believe it, I know, you are so healthy."

Here we were interrupted by Mrs. Longfield's plaintive voice reminding her invalid daughter that she had been sitting "to one side too long,"

and would "excite her spinal inflammation" if she did not "straighten up against the cushions of her chair."

Miss Longfield sighed peevishly, as she fell back in languid obedience to this solicitous injunction; she was constantly exposing herself thus rashly to the mercy of her chronic complaints. Shortly after this, dinner was announced, and we were mutually delighted, I expect, to find the latest turn of our conversation, which threatened to be flat and uninteresting, thus brought to a happy, though abrupt termination.

As soon after dinner as manners would allow me to leave, I bade good evening to my amiable hostesses, who were profuse in their regrets and expressions of disappointment at my early departure, and I sauntered quietly back to cousin Bessie's house.

It was not yet dark, though the moon was visible in the clear sky, and relieved, to find myself once more alone, I walked with purposely slow and leisure steps towards my home, rehearsing in my mind, with much genuine amus.e.m.e.nt, my recent brilliant and highly intellectual conversation with Miss Longfield.

As I drew near the Nyles' gate, its familiar squeak and the accompanying clash of its iron latches, broke upon my ear. I started, and peering through the gathering dusk, I saw the figure of a man turn into the street and stride rapidly away in the opposite direction from the one I was then pursuing. My heart gave a great leap, I hardly knew why, and the blood rushed into my face, something caught in my throat and I gave a short, hysterical cough. I had reached the gate, and the air around it was yet laden with the scent of a rich cigar, though the figure had pa.s.sed into the distant gloom.

I pushed it open nervously, and it fell to with the same squeak and clash as before. I stopped for a moment, and leaning over the low railing I looked eagerly up and down the silent street. The moon struggled through a feathery cloud at this instant, and flooded the scene before me with its gentle light; I saw a figure again, beyond the shadows of the tall, bare trees that lay upon the white moonlit walk, it stopped, and turned sharply around, a little red light was moving with it, back towards where I was standing.

My heart beat loud and fast, as the footsteps drew nearer and nearer.

I recoiled impulsively behind the projecting post beside me: I was a coward at the last moment, the scent of the cigar became stronger and stronger, the ring of advancing footsteps quicker and louder--they had reached the gate and paused--there was only the post between us now. I held my breath, and did not dare to move while this suspense lasted.

Would he never move on? I asked myself. How foolish I was to have waited there at all? I felt tempted to make one bound and spring up the garden-steps, but I had not courage enough even for this.

While I was busy with these thoughts, the interesting figure receded to the outer end of the sidewalk and scanned the upper portion of the house eagerly. I then heard him mutter an impatient "Pshaw!" under his breath, and he turned to walk away.

All my deserted courage rushed back to me the instant I saw him moving from me. I sprang from my hiding-place, and leaning my arms upon the bars of the gate as before, I said timidly:

"Who is that?"

The figure halted suddenly and turned around. In a moment he was standing beside me with his hat in one hand, the other extended towards me.

"Why, Dr Campbell, can this be _you_?" I cried in slow bewilderment.

"Yes, Miss Hampden, it is I" he answered nervously, "Are you glad to see me?"

"Glad" I repeated, half reproachfully, "why should I not be glad? I am delighted to see you. Won't you come in" I asked, making a movement to open the gate.

"I have just been to the house, asking for you," he said. "They told me you had gone out to dine, and they could not say exactly when you would come back. I have only to-day to spend in the town, and was feeling quite disappointed at not finding you at home, when the clashing of the gate arrested my attention. But tell me," he interrupted gently, "How are you, how have you been since I saw you last?"

"Oh, I have been well enough, thank you. Cousin Bessie is the very personification of kindness, and gives me every comfort. I only hope you have been as well treated as I have," I returned, with an effort at ordinary civility.

He did not answer immediately; he looked away from me and then said slowly.

"I have been pretty well--but not well enough. I have been studying and working very hard."

"What, _you?_" escaped me before I could control it. He laughed an odd little laugh and added: "Yes--_me_, I have not gone out to a dance or pleasure party of any kind since--since you left. I have lived with my books, day and night"

"You must have had some ominous vision in your sleep, Dr. Campbell," I said with unrestrained surprise, "to have become converted to such sedentary habits in so short a time."

"Yes, you are right," he answered curtly and somewhat eagerly, "I had a strange, beautiful vision that showed me the folly and emptiness of my life more plainly than anything else could ever have done, and I thank that vision that I have been able to make amends in time for the omissions and transgressions of the past."

I was half frightened at his earnest voice and serious expression, I hardly knew what to answer him. When I did speak, I was conscious of a tremor in my voice that must have betrayed something of the suspicion his words had awakened in me.